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miercuri, 28 martie 2012
Photo: Oval Office Phone Inspection
The Lowdown on Structured Data and Schema.org - Your Questions Answered!
The Lowdown on Structured Data and Schema.org - Your Questions Answered! |
| The Lowdown on Structured Data and Schema.org - Your Questions Answered! Posted: 27 Mar 2012 02:10 PM PDT Posted by Daniel Butler This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. First of all, thank you to everyone who listened in to the Microformats and Schema.org webinar with Richard Baxter and myself. If you are a PRO member and haven't had a chance to listen in, be sure to check it out! During and after the webinar we received a ton of great feedback and questions which we unfortunately just didn't have time to cover off (ah man!). But…as they were awesome questions, SEOmoz have given us the chance to rock out a blog post as a follow up. So, sit back and enjoy as we take your head from confusion to conclusion. 1. Can you show/speak about pros and cons of using Schema versus using micro formats?I don't think we can really compare micro formats to schema.org directly - micro formats are a form of structured data, like microdata and RDFa with a limited set of pre-defined properties. The sole purpose of Schema.org is to extend the vocabulary used in structured data, and at the moment only microdata can be combined with Schema.org. Although there has been talk of plans to start using RDFa. Due to the extensive vocabulary on offer and universal support from the major search engines, the future is looking bright for the growth of Schema.org. Can the same really be said for micro-formats? IMO no, it's an easy to understand mark up but doesn't have the universal support to maintain growth. 2. What are other advantages of using schema and microdata except for getting better rich snippets?Marking up items on a web page creates a stronger overall definition of what the content is really about. Aaron Bradley wrote a great blog post on seoskeptic.com deciphering Google's semantic search intentions. You only need to look at Google's recipe search as an example of what is starting to evolve from the data contained within the mark up we install. 3. Did you guys notice any improvement in rankings after implementing schema?I personally haven't seen a direct impact on rankings from integrating any form of structured data, but that doesn't mean it won't happen in the near future. With the purchase of Metaweb/Freebase back in 2010, and new developments for its Semantic search on the horizon, we can only guess this will be playing a greater role. 4. What are some practical applications of micro data or micro formats with a higher education institute? Is it possible to define a new "item type" such as courses, degrees, etc?Ok, let's break down a few ideas which have the potential to generate a rich snippet for an Educational institute, first up ‘Place'. There is a schema type for Educational Organization that allows us to mark up the name and location of the institute, resulting in the address featuring in the rich snippet. The mark up would resemble something like: <div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/EducationalOrganization"> <span itemprop="name"></span> <div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="schema.org/PostalAddress"> <span itemprop="streetAddress"></span> <span itemprop="addressLocality"></span> <span itemprop="addressRegion"></span> <span itemprop="postalCode"></span> </div> With regards to the courses themselves, why not gather some reviews from recent graduates for each course. This can then be marked up with standard Review schema, but then combined with some additional mark up to describe the actual person who left the review as a recent graduate. This can be done using the itemprop="alumni": <span itemprop="alumni" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"> <span itemprop="name"></span> So now that we have a few reviews and ratings from recent graduates, why not take this one step further and create an aggregate rating with schema.org, which will ultimately lead to the star rating rich snippet. If the resource is available another awesome addition to a course page would be a very quick introductory video of each course. This in turn can be marked up using schema's VideoObject, which when combined with video XML sitemaps, correct video formatting and a bunch of other items described in this cool post by Geoff of Distilled, will lead to a video thumbnail being generated in the search results. Here is a quick piece of Schema video mark up: <div itemprop="video" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/VideoObject"> <span itemprop="name">[feature the exact title of the video]</span> <meta itemprop="duration" content="[duration of the video in the format: T0M53S]" /> <meta itemprop="thumbnail" content="[video thumbnail url]" /> <meta itemprop="uploadDate" content="[the upload date and time of video in ISO format e.g. 2012-03-14T09:00:00+09:00]"> <span itemprop="description"></span> Here are a few other things which could result in a rich snippet for an educational institute:
As for defining new ‘item types' it is totally possible, check out the extension mechanism. This will allow applications to develop a basic level of understanding of the mark up used, but it's unlikely to lead to a rich snippet being generated unless there is a large/growing popularity for the particular item type. However the Schema vocabulary is growing, so although there may not be a defining type right now there could well be in the near future. For example there has been recent talk of collaboration between ESPN and Google to define a new Sports schema. 5. With the review section... wouldn't this allow websites to manipulate their ratings? How will this be monitored by Google?Yes, and it's been happening, A LOT! Originally there was an approval process for a domain to become white-listed for rich snippets, which involved informing Google via a simple form submission. But I remember it having a pretty heavy waiting list, anything from 4 weeks to 6 months. This eventually changed, and the approval speed for websites significantly improved (relying primarily on algorithmic validation). Within a day or so of implementing a set of mark up, rich snippets were being generated. This of course then led to a lot of the abuse, and a crackdown on spam by Google allowing people to report rich snippet spam. There are always going to be questions on the validity of review data, but it's a really tricky one to judge. I wonder whether trusted third party review platforms could play a greater role in helping to filter out spam in a similar way to that seen in Google Shopping, but even then they are still open to abuse. 6. In the IMdb example the image has an item property on it but it is not in the search result. Why is this?Very good question, this would make for such an awesome rich snippet. Outside of video thumbnails, software applications, recipe search, and news/articles, rich snippet support for the image property is still quite restricted. 7. Do you have an example of breadcrumbs showing up in results?Motorauthority.com uses microdata to mark up its breadcrumb trail, resulting in the following snippet: 8. Do you know of any way to mark up a "product category" page? Not a product aggregator page (a list of the same products available from different vendors), but, say, an e-commerce category page that lists different products?Ok, let's say we are a kick ass clothing store and stock merchandise from a number of cool brands like Animal, Quicksilver, Rip Curl etc. Let's take a broad category like ‘Animal' as our example, which includes products like bags, shirts, shorts and hoodies – there are a couple of things we could affectively do:
The code for this would resemble something like: <div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product"> <span itemprop="name"><span itemprop="brand">Animal</span></span> <div itemprop="aggregateRating" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateRating"> Products in the Animal category have been rated <span itemprop="ratingValue">5</span> out of <span itemprop="bestRating">5</span> based on <span itemprop="ratingCount">387</span> reviews. </div> <div itemprop="offers" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateOffer"> There are <span itemprop="offerCount">120</span> clothing products on sale, ranging from <span itemprop="lowPrice">$10.00</span> to <span itemprop="highPrice">$120.00</span> </div> Using the above code, here is an example rich snippet: 9. Does associating CSS with these microformat classes have any negative effect?Applying CSS formatting directly to any of the properties of the mark up language shouldn't affect the rich snippet code in any way. As long as the correct naming conventions have been used, there shouldn't be any trouble. 10. Is there a Rich Snippet Generator and Schema Generator you would recommend?There aren't a huge amount of actual code generators, but here are the ones I'm aware of:
Here's a list of some other tools and plug-ins which may also be of use. 11. Does it matter where you put any of these markup codes on the site?The actual location of the mark up on a web page doesn't impact the ability to generate rich snippets. The ordering of mark up can however, especially when nesting elements, so be sure to test thoroughly using the Google testing tool, or the Bing WMT equivalent. Thanks again to all those who submitted questions. We hope that this post provides the answers you were seeking, and if there are any new questions please fire away in the comments! Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions Posted: 27 Mar 2012 03:52 AM PDT Posted by gabandrei This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. I am a Romanian. I am proud of it, despite of what the world thinks about Romanians. What people think about Romanians could be influenced by Google. Google is a voice in the world, which influence in a positive or negative way, even if we do not like it. But let me start with the beginning. In November 2011, someone noticed that if he typed in Google romanians are (English), romanii sunt (Romanian), les roumains sont (French), los romanos son (Spanish), i rumeni sono (Italian), rumanen sind intelligent (German) the Autocomplete gave only negative suggestions. Trying to find out what's going on, he understood that the suggestions are determined based on a number of purely objective factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. If you would like to find out more details about it, Danny Sullivan wrote a really nice article on How Google Instant's Autocomplete suggestions work. Starting from this, one of the most well knows Romanian brands, ROM, launches a campaign to change the Romania's image on Google. They build a website: Romanians are smart (with a Romanian version on Romanii sunt destepti), where they persuade Romanians to search on Google on specific terms, so they will change the Google Autocomplete suggestions. The campaign's call to action is "Change with a click"; users get the option to search directly from the website in six languages: Romanian, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian with the final goal of changing the Romania's image on Internet: On Youtube they uploaded a tutorial that helps users to understand why and what they are supposed to do:
At the launching date, in November, there were very few searches, and they were only on negative terms. As you can see in Insights for search the number of searches increased quickly, the positive terms having a higher volume than the negative ones. Of course, some negative searches were still in use, probably a lot of users wanted to see how the results look like. One month later, on December 21 st 2011, a Romanian blogger piticu.ro shows for the first time that positive suggestions started to appear next to negative ones. On the website we can see live how many searches have been made in all languages (and different websites too). Today there have been already made on the website over 600000 searches:
For some languages, the suggestions are completely changed, and only positive terms appear: For some languages, there's still work to do. For French for example, where the positive searches appears next to the negative ones. Google gives bad suggestions about your name or brand? With a bit of work this can be fixed. Romanians are smart, aren't they? Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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Seth's Blog : Why isn't it better?
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- Perhaps you don't know enough
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These might be three ways to say the same thing.
The combination of fear and ignorance (two sides of the same coin) can be paralyzing.
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marți, 27 martie 2012
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
- Mish vs. Jo Weisenthal: Debate on Capital Account Regarding Gold
- US Promotes "Market-Determined Exchange Rates" at WTO Forum; Translation: "China Float the Yuan"
- Australia Roundup: 25% of Small to Medium-Sized Businesses Struggle to Pay Bills; Bank of Queensland Hit by Surge of Real Estate Losses; Labor Party Routed in Elections
- Obama vs. Ryan: Budget Showdown - Deficit and Total Debt Projections Through 2021 - Interactive map; Path to Prosperity or Path to Ruin?
| Mish vs. Jo Weisenthal: Debate on Capital Account Regarding Gold Posted: 27 Mar 2012 01:08 PM PDT In response to a Tweet by Capital Account host Lauren Lyster regarding my post Ben Bernanke: Inflationist Jackass, Devoid of Common Sense, and Clueless About Trade, Debt, History, and Gold, Jo Weisenthal at Business Insider proposed a debate. We had that debate yesterday and here is the video. Link if video does not play: Mish vs. Weisenthal: Bernanke's Class Lecture on Money Leads to After-School Blog Brawl In the course of a quick 15 minute debate broken into a series of 30 second sound bites, it is sometimes difficult to get everything said that needed to be said. One point I did not get a chance to mention again, but I did bring up in my Blog rebuttal to Weisenthal, is that central bank planning of money supply and interest rates is in and of itself ridiculous. Repeat bubbles and bailouts prove it. Soviet Style Planned Economies Do Not Work It makes as much sense for a group of guys in a room to attempt to set a price and amount of money as it did for inept Soviet-style central planners to run an economy, setting the price and amount of steel production and other goods - precisely none. Certainly the Greenspan Fed ignored (cheerleaded is a better word), the housing bubble every step of the way. Bernanke defended the housing bubble and failed to see its consequences. Stability and Flexibility The most amazing, and galling thing, is Bernanke has the nerve to preach about "price stability" in the wake of that collapse. Jo wants the flexibility for the Fed to step in and cleanup messes. I don't want the flexibility of fractional reserve lending and fiat currencies because that is what created these messes in the first place. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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| US Promotes "Market-Determined Exchange Rates" at WTO Forum; Translation: "China Float the Yuan" Posted: 27 Mar 2012 12:27 PM PDT In a move that is likely to get general agreement, yet go absolutely nowhere fast, United States Promotes Market-Determined Exchange Rates at World Trade Organization Forum. Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Michael Punke and Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Monetary and Financial Policy Mark Sobel today began a two-day series of meetings at the World Trade Organization's (WTO) seminar on the relationship between exchange rates and trade, where they will advocate for market-determined exchange rates as a foundation of an open global trading system.The discussion is useless. China will float the Yuan when it is ready and not before. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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| Posted: 27 Mar 2012 10:43 AM PDT One sure way to know voters are fed up with the economy is when politicians are thrown out on their asses en masse. That is exactly what happened down under as Australia PM surprised by Labor rout in state election. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Monday she was surprised at the scale of her ruling Labor party's defeat in state elections, widely seen as a dire warning for her fragile government.The Labor Party is aptly named but US readers need to be aware that the strangely named Liberal National Party has a conservative connotation. Compounding the irony, the World Socialist Web bemoans the alleged "pro-business" program of the Labor Party. You cannot make this stuff up. Small Firms Struggle With Bills Australian businesses are going to crash and burn as a result of Labor initiatives and a property bubble headed for a "big flush". The Australian reports Small Firms Struggle With Bills. MORE than a quarter of small to medium-sized firms face going under because they are unable to pay their tax bills and outgoings, the latest survey by Bibby Financial Services says.Bank of Queensland Halted, Hit By Surge in Real Estate Losses Please consider Bank of Queensland in H1 loss on higher impairments, to raise $450m THE Bank of Queensland (BoQ) has been hit by a surge in residential and commercial property loans striking trouble, prompting the board to order a $450 million capital raising to shore up the regional bank's balance sheet.The Party is Over Turn out the lights, the party is over. Australia is headed for one hell of a hangover in the wake of residential and commercial real estate busts. Retailers will be especially hard hit as consumers throw in the towel on spending and store owners struggle to keep up with absurd labor costs and excessive lease payments or property taxes. Bloodbath On the Way No one should be surprised by the election rout or the problems of store owners. On March 4th I stated Australia Services Index Plunges to Significant Contraction; Bleakest of Views From Retail Shops; Retail and Housing Bloodbath Coming Up Retail prices in Australia are absurd. A 5% reduction in prices is hardly a bargain. As for the notion mining will carry the economy, forget about it. Commodity prices are going to plunge, and besides, commodities are not a big driver of jobs anyway.Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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| Posted: 27 Mar 2012 01:24 AM PDT Inquiring minds are asking How does Paul Ryan's budget plan stack up against president Obama's budget plan, item-by-item? With thanks to Ross Perez and Lori Williams at Tableau Software, let's take a look. The idea for this post came from Lori Williams. I asked for the deficit and debt comparison tables at the bottom. Numbers are rounded to the nearest $100 billion. Data is from the CBO Analysis of the President's 2013 Budget and Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity. In Path to Prosperity I found this interesting chart and commentary.  First, Figure 2 makes it very clear that, absent action, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will soon grow to consume every dollar of revenue that the government raises in taxes. At that point, policymakers would be left with no good options. I happen to agree with that analysis, so what does Ryan propose to do about it? The answer is nothing. Obama vs. Ryan Medicare Proposal  Note that Medicare expenses soar under both Obama's plan and Ryan's plan. Is this the best Ryan can do? Obama vs. Ryan Deficit and Debt  Notice how both Ryan and president Obama make progress for three years, then nothing for the next seven. Ryan does a better job, but after 10 years of Ryan's proposal, national debt will rise from 11.5 Trillion to $16.1 trillion and that is if Ryan's revenue assumptions come in. Here's a hint: They won't. Revenue assumptions for both Obama and Ryan will prove to be way too optimistic. A point of note: Ryan and Obama use a different starting point for national debt, which coupled with arithmetic rounding, explains the slight discrepancy in the first column of numbers. Path to Prosperity or Path to Ruin? It's easy to make a comparison to Obama's budget and do better. Indeed it would be hard to do worse, but that does not make Ryan's budget any good. Ryan does nothing about Medicare and makes the horrendously over-bloated defense budget even worse. I happen to like some of Ryan's ideas, and hate others, but the overall budget proposal is not fiscally sound. I would like to do similar analysis of Romney's plan. Unfortunately Romney does not have a plan, only vague promises of miracles, more far-fetched than what Ryan has proposed. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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